Father's Final Bullet
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Baavira Week Day 5: Monster. Kuvira takes Baatar on a camping trip to a forest for their anniversary where they run into a grisly being.


_The beast stood tall, puffing out a wide and bulky chest, one that was uncannily disproportionate to its gaunt torso. It didn't have eyes, where they should have been protruded yellowing, many branched antlers with a coppery stain. But somehow she got the sense that it was staring at her. It let out a hideous screech, an ungodly cross between a roar and a gurgling cry. Bits of deer flew from its mouth, speckling her face. The odor was absolutely and unforgivably repulsive-a rancid rotten meat smell. With that wail it dropped back on all fours._

"_Dad! Shoot it!" Her voice was raw from screaming, but she shrieked the command anyways. _

_He took aim and fired but the bullets only seem to graze the creature. It aggressively shook its head from side to side and let out another soul piercing call. To her horror, it is answered by another. _

"_Fuck." Her father mumbled under his breath. Her fear heightened, he never used that word when he knew that she could hear. He took another shot, but the monster paid him no mind. She was easier pray. _

_It leapt. _

_The last thing she saw was the flaps of its slobbery maw unfurling like petals._

_The pain was excruciating, like a collection of burning needles sinking into her teeny arm._

**.oOo.**

A dim phone light and beaming headlights are all they have to assist them. They illuminate Kuvira's form as she passes in front of them. Baatar watches her stoop down to inspect the tires. He watches a fine whirlpool of mist curl around her body, dissipating as she moved through it.

She comes back around and yanks his door open. "It's flat."

"Of course it is." He grumbles more to himself.

He was anxious as it were, being in such a remote area. Kuvira has taken him camping before, many times actually. The woman has either a natural talent for it or has years of experience. He likes to believe that it is a combination of both. It is almost bittersweet to some degree. Kuvira had made mention that it was how she and her father used to bond before he'd sacrificed her for his drug habits. She noted that he'd teach her earthbending out in the woods, declaring that it helps to be in a place so heavily infused with earth.

"Can you fix it?" He finally asks after a moment of watching her inspect the car and scratch her head.

"I can if we have a spare." Everything in her tone indicates that she has already checked and found that they did not. His guesswork is confirmed when she muses, "we'll have to get it towed." She looks about the place. "I guess here is good enough."

Baatar gives an incredulous blink. "What?"

"We were going to camp off trail anyhow." She shrugs. "Why does it matter where?"

She has a point, but he had still been hoping that the woman would change her mind and pull into a campground. He finds camping easier when he could hear the chatter of other campers and the crackle of their fires. They weren't so isolated then.

"Besides, I made sure to finds us a place far from any campgrounds." She gives him one of her innocent smiles, the one that is somehow cocky and mischievous at the same time.

"You didn't tell me that!" He winces.

"You wouldn't have gone." She replies, sitting herself on the hood of the car. "Unbuckle your seatbelt and help me set up camp."

"Shouldn't we call the tow truck?" He asks.

"I suppose." She replies, "if you can get a signal." She peers at her own phone. "Hard to come by this far out." She notes.

Bataar dramatically falls over the steering wheel. "How could you do this to me? On our anniversary too."

Kuvira snickers and pulls him out of the car. "You're going to have a good time." She hoists a few tent poles into his arms. "Hold on to those for a moment." It isn't like he has a choice.

He hangs onto them until Kuvira indicates that she wants them. He isn't much help in getting the tent constructed. He is still anxious with the fog coiling its spectral fingers around the trunks of trees and the moon casting odd and shifting shadows on the forest floor. He knows that they are only leaves but they appear like a heinous and deeply dark vortex. The night is clear, nearly cloudless and the stars display themselves in the most extraordinary way. For a moment his fear tapers off as he watches the stars glimmer. He has never seen them so spectacularly. He thinks that he can make out a few constellations.

The fear, however, works its way back in when he recalls how prone he and his wife would be if a UFO decided to drop itself. An icy feeling slips over him.

Baatar turns his gaze away from the sky and back to a half-pitched tent. "Kuvira?"

A pair of arms wrap around his middle and he jolts. "Yes?"

"I hate you." He mutters.

She kisses the crook of his neck. "You're too jittery." She rummages through their luggage, pulls out a can of beer, and sets it in his hand. "Relax a little."

He pops the can and has himself a drink, watching Kuvira finish the task she'd started. Even after having watch her do it so many times, it still impresses him that she can construct the tent on her own in such a timely manner. He slaps at his arms, the mosquitos are from hell this year, he declares to himself. He wants to go to the car for some bug spray, but he feels much safer in the light of the lantern that Kuvira has set out.

"Can you get a fire going?" Kuvira requests.

"Will I have to go find firewood?" Baatar asks.

"That's part of the job, yes." She replies.

"I cannot get a fire going." He doesn't need her to turn around for him to know that she is rolling her eyes.

She takes a step back from the tent. "There, that should do it." She muses and then she addresses Baatar with a simple, "come on." She takes him by the wrist.

"I'm not going any further away from the road than this." Baatar insists.

"Alright, then wait here." Kuvira shrugs.

Ignoring the knots in his belly, Baatar declares that he will. She takes the lantern and begins wandering deeper into a dense cluster of cedar and fir. The forest becomes that much more imposing as her light and company grows further. He can barely see the lantern when he caves and calls for her to wait. For a dreadful heartbeat, he thinks that she hadn't heard him. But the light's distance from him doesn't grow. He hustles to catch up with her, snagging his shirt on a stray branch or two. By the time he reaches her he his out of breath.

Apparently his dismay humors her. "Glad you decided to go on this walk with me."

"Next time, I'm choosing where we go on our anniversary." He states.

"Go ahead." She answers. He has to admit, he is thankful she hasn't snapped at him yet, he can't imagine that he hasn't been making an annoyance of himself.

"How much further do we have to go?" He pesters further. "Do you know how to get back to the car?"

Kuvira stoops down and collects some larger branches. "These should do just fine. Yes, I know where the car is."

**.oOo.**

It takes an hour or so of sitting around the fire and telling fantastical woodland tales for him to finally relax even just a little. She hasn't yet had the heart to tell him that she has chosen this spot in particular because it is the very same forest that her father liked to take her to as a girl. It is harder still to even think of vocalizing the true reason for the trip.

Instead she names, for him, some of the sounds he hears; crickets and the constant croaking of spring peeper. On occasions she points out the call of an owl. He seems to take mental notes as she prods the fire with a stick, sending showers of sparks into the air. The smell of smoke intermingles with resin. She breathes it in, it is comforting. Familiar. But it is also comes with a somber undertone. It awakens the part of her the misses her father. The smile and life in his eyes that drugs had stolen away. She wonders if he would have continued treating her well, if he would have still taken her on camping trips. Child protective services hadn't allowed her to find out.

"Did we remember to pack marshmallows?" Baatar asks hopefully. She silently thanks him for bringing her wandering mind to a standstill.

Kuvira feels around her backpack. She tosses the bag of them to the man. He finds himself a stick and begins twirling the marshmallow around in the flames. She knows that he has set one aflame when he begins cursing and fishing in the bag for another marshmallow. "Want one?" He offers.

"I'll pass." She says and after a pause adds, "I'll be right back." Noticing the anxiety flicker back into his eyes she elaborates, "I'm just going to get a blanket from the tent. Do you want me to grab yours?"

He rubs the back of his head, cheeks faintly pink. "Yes, please."

She unzips the tent and collects the blanket.

And then she finds herself standing rigid with a very particular edginess.

The forest has gone quiet, save for Baatar exclaiming, "finally, they shut up."

Her gaze flickers to her arm for a moment before she rushes over and hushes him.

"What? Why?" He asks just as loudly, earning him a thump on the shoulder.

"I said be quiet." She hisses, feeling tense all over.

She knows this brand of silence. It is the same sort that had her father reaching for his gun all those years ago.


End file.
